Parkinson's Disease

Artificial intelligence robots are turbocharging the race to find new drugs for the crippling nerve disorder ALS, commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease. "Many doctors call it the worst disease in medicine, and the unmet need is huge," said Richard Mead of the Sheffield Institute of Translational Neuroscience, who has found artificial intelligence (AI) is already speeding up his work. One candidate proposed by AI machines recently produced promising results in preventing the death of motor neurone cells and delaying disease onset in preclinical tests in Sheffield. A key test will come with a study by Benevolent to assess a previously unsuccessful compound from Johnson & Johnson in a new disease area -- this time for treating Parkinson's disease patients with excessive daytime sleepiness.

"Many doctors call it the worst disease in medicine and the unmet need is huge," said Richard Mead of the Sheffield Institute of Translational Neuroscience, who has found artificial intelligence (AI) is already speeding up his work. Famous sufferers include Lou Gehrig, the 1923-39 New York Yankees baseball player; actor and playwright Sam Shepard, who died last month; and Hawking, a rare example of someone living for decades with the condition. A key test will come with a Phase IIb study by Benevolent to assess a previously unsuccessful compound from Johnson & Johnson in a new disease area - this time for treating Parkinson's disease patients with excessive daytime sleepiness. For Benevolent's Hunter, today's attempts to find new drugs for ALS and other difficult diseases marks an important test-bed for the future of AI, which is already being deployed in other high-tech areas such as autonomous cars.

To us as a neuroscientist and biomechanist (Lena), and a rehabilitation scientist and dancer (Madeleine), understanding the complexities of motor skill in a ballet move, or the physical language of coordination in partner dance, is an inspiring and daunting challenge. The ultimate goal is to help better design and prescribe rehabilitation to those with reduced mobility, as well as to develop robots that can physically interact with people to help with both motor assistance and motor learning. Lucas McKay, an assistant professor in Biomedical Engineering at Emory specializing in mechanisms of balance impairment in Parkinson's disease, showed that participants improved muscle activity for balance after adapted tango. That is, as they practiced their tango dancing skills, they developed motor modules that also helped them walk and balance in everyday situations.

To us as a neuroscientist and biomechanist (Lena), and a rehabilitation scientist and dancer (Madeleine), understanding the complexities of motor skill in a ballet move, or the physical language of coordination in partner dance, is an inspiring and daunting challenge. The ultimate goal is to help better design and prescribe rehabilitation to those with reduced mobility, as well as to develop robots that can physically interact with people to help with both motor assistance and motor learning. Lucas McKay, an assistant professor in Biomedical Engineering at Emory specializing in mechanisms of balance impairment in Parkinson's disease, showed that participants improved muscle activity for balance after adapted tango. That is, as they practiced their tango dancing skills, they developed motor modules that also helped them walk and balance in everyday situations.

To us as a neuroscientist and biomechanist ( Lena), and a rehabilitation scientist and dancer ( Madeleine), understanding the complexities of motor skill in a ballet move, or the physical language of coordination in partner dance, is an inspiring and daunting challenge. Adapted tango rehabilitation class improves gait and balance in people with Parkinson's disease. Lucas McKay, an assistant professor in Biomedical Engineering at Emory specializing in mechanisms of balance impairment in Parkinson's disease, showed that participants improved muscle activity for balance after adapted tango. That is, as they practiced their tango dancing skills, they developed motor modules that also helped them walk and balance in everyday situations.

In tests in mice, the injectable probe produced a minimal, short-lived immune response and the mesh and brain tissue merged with the probe. In tests in mice, the injectable probe produced a minimal, short-lived immune response and the mesh and brain tissue merged with the probe. Dr Charles Lieber, the co-author of the research, says that'the mesh electronics should provide unique opportunities for brain-machine interfaces for tetraplegic patients, deep brain stimulations for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, and neural prosthetics in general' Dr Lieber says that most areas of neuroscience research could benefit from the technology's long-term stability and ability to record signals at the level of a single neuron. Dr Lieber also says that'the mesh electronics should provide unique opportunities for brain-machine interfaces for tetraplegic patients, deep brain stimulations for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, and neural prosthetics in general.'

How soon will it be before smart machines perform complex, multifaceted services such as looking out for our health? Every day, we hear about smart machines with new capabilities: computers that can outplay chess masters or are capable of processing natural language to answer increasingly complex questions; new cars that alert us when the driver in front of us hits the brakes, when we drift out of our designated lanes, or when a pedestrian suddenly steps off the curb. But how soon will it be before smart machines perform complex, multifaceted services such as looking out for our health? Applying similar capabilities to detect other illness early and accurately may not be far away.

This circuit may also be one of the targets of the neural degeneration seen in Parkinson's disease, says Ann Graybiel, an Institute Professor at MIT, member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and the senior author of the study. Graybiel and her colleagues were able to find these connections using a technique developed at MIT known as expansion microscopy, which enables scientists to expand brain tissue before imaging it. In this study, the researchers focused on a small region of the brain known as the striatum, which is part of the basal ganglia -- a cluster of brain centers associated with habit formation, control of voluntary movement, emotion, and addiction. To figure out how these regions might be communicating, Graybiel, Crittenden, and their colleagues used expansion microscopy to image the striosomes and discovered extensive connections between those clusters of cells and dopamine-producing cells of the substantia nigra.

The mystery of how Parkinson's disease progresses could be cracked thanks to researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) and machine learning. Deborah Apthorp of the ANU Research School of Psychology has won funding for a study that will track early symptoms with the aim of finding possible indicators of progression, using machine learning. Apthrop's research will look at brain imaging, eye tracking, visual perception and postural sway altogether. Apthorp also noted that evidence points to control of eye movement being related to the parts of the brain that are impacted by Parkinson's.

THE world's first monkey genetically engineered to have Parkinson's disease has been created by researchers in Japan, New Scientist can reveal. "By their third year, the monkeys began to show the characteristic tremors of the disease" "With these diseases, it's very difficult to investigate what's happening in living people, so knowledge of the brain circuits responsible are mostly unidentified," says Okano. In China, there are 40 breeding companies which together have 250,000 cynomolgus monkeys and 40,000 rhesus macaques that could be used for scientific research, says Mu-Ming Poo of the Chinese Academy of Sciences's Institute of Neuroscience, and leader of a government-funded plan for a 15-year national brain project also involving genetically modified monkeys. This article appeared in print under the headline "Monkeys created with Parkinson's" Leader: "Monkey experiments are a necessary evil for better medicine"